


the shape of things we cannot ignore

by iwillbeyourgoal



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 23:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillbeyourgoal/pseuds/iwillbeyourgoal
Summary: That was how the twins had always operated – themselves first, everyone else in the planersystem second.He wondered how she got over that.(taako asks lup "how does love?")





	the shape of things we cannot ignore

**Author's Note:**

> hi i haven't been able to stop thinking about taz in two weeks and this is how i'm expressing it
> 
> title is from "come to your senses" from tick, tick... BOOM!

_“I love you, Taako, and at this point, I think that everyone in reality is going to love you after hearing your story. And… nothing’s going to change that.”_

The words bounce around Taako’s brain as he sits under an umbrella facing the ocean. They’re all visiting Merle’s family (which – okay, sure, Merle fathering children isn’t the most surprising thing to have found out at this point, but still a little shocking) before they all try to figure out what the fuck they’re going to do now that the Bureau of Balance is effectively defunct.

It’s been really nice, a lot like IPRE’s year at the beach – just subtract the impending fear of the Hunger and add Kravitz, Killian, Carey and Angus. Yeah, it’s a nice little vacation.

But here’s the thing, Taako thinks as he watches Mavis and Magnus splash each other in the surf. He’s been _going_ for… hundreds of years now. Just going and going. There hasn’t been a moment of stagnancy, and that’s been fine with him. When you have no home, traveling is your only option. He and Lup learned that early on.

So forgive him, he thinks, if the concept of being content is a little foreign. His leg jiggles up and down whenever he sits, at night he rises silently from his bed he shares with Kravitz and walks the length of the shore, and he feels… off.

“Hey, brother friend,” he hears suddenly. Resisting the urge to sigh, he smiles and looks up at his sister.

“Yo,” he says, in a hopefully light tone. “You’re not gonna try to get me out in the sun like Merle, are you?”

She smiles and fingers the end of her long spectral braid. “It _is_ pretty nice out, bro.”

“Skincare is important, Lulu. Gotta preserve whatever beauty I haven’t already gambled away.”

Lup laughs and rolls her eyes as she sits down on the sand next to Taako’s chair. “Even with 10 percent less beauty, or whatever, you’re still better looking than the entire rest of the world.”

“That’s what _I_ said!”

“I know.” She smirks and butts her shoulder up against his leg. “I was there.”

This realization strikes Taako somewhat. He knows that she’s been by his side for basically his entire journey with Merle and Magnus, but the thought still doesn’t come to him naturally. “Oh yeah,” he replies meekly.

They sit there like that for a few minutes, quietly as their friends surround them. Taako wishes he could calm his mind, even for a second, and he especially wishes Lup wasn’t here. Not that he doesn’t love having her around – he absolutely does – but she brings with her the discomfort of having someone know your every thought. Being identical twins usually benefitted them, but it’s nearly impossible to hide your feelings from each other, even when you can succeed with everyone else.

Sure enough, he starts to feel her eyes on him, as he pointedly looks anywhere that’s else. The act is pointless, but at least he can put on the front of not acknowledging her initially.

This goes on until it can go on no longer, which in Lup’s case is a few minutes.

“Hey,” she says softly, placing a hand on his knee. “Are you okay?”

He knew this was coming – and even with the time to plan, he still didn’t have a decent enough lie queued up. “I – I guess.”

“You guess,” Lup repeats softly, cocking her head. Taako growls – he’s always hated when she does that, equal parts pity and infuriating understanding.

“Yeah, Lup,” he says defiantly. “I don’t know what you want.”

This would turn anyone else away from pursuing a further confrontation, but not his sister. She’s known him too long and too well to believe his front. Damn it.

“I want my brother to be happy, you moron. And ever since we beat the Hunger, he seems… well, not.”

His eyes drift to Kravitz, who’s talking to Lucretia a ways down the shore. “Kravitz said he loved me,” he says quietly, turning back to his sister.

She nods. “I know.”

He rubs his eyes as he continues, “I don’t know what to do with that.”

Lup stares at him for a moment before saying, “Do you love him?”

Snorting derisively, Taako kicks up some sand. “I don’t know if I love anything except for you.”

“That’s bullshit,” Lup says calmly.

“Well, fine!” Taako retorts, retreating back into humor. “Sibling love revoked.”

“No, dingus.” She doesn’t indulge him; she refuses to let him hide. “Of course you love me, why wouldn’t you. I just mean… it’s so obvious in everything you do, babe. The love you have? It’s in every part of you. And I know… how hard it can be. To let other people see that.”

She’s not lying. They didn’t exactly swap boy tales during their travels with IPRE, but it was clear to Taako that Barry was more willing than his sister to fall. That was how the twins had always operated – themselves first, everyone else in the planersystem second.

He wondered how she got over that.

“Lulu?”

“Yeah?”

“…How did you do it?”

She stares at him intently. “Do what?”

“I…” He starts to answer, but looks down and fingers the edge of his skirt for a few moments, trying to summon the words. “It was always just the two of us, you know? You and me.” She nods. “So how did _you_ become…”

“The two of us?” she finishes, a small smile playing at her lips as she looks to Barry down the way. He sees her and waves and she blows a kiss, her nose crinkling in happiness as she does.

“Yeah,” Taako says.

She looks at her brother with a fondness forged from years of fighting for survival side by side. “It wasn’t easy, if that’s what you’re asking.” She shrugs. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but you and I? We’ve got trust issues.”

“Yeah, well, show me literally anyone in the world who’s worth trusting.” As he says this, he tries not to let bitterness seep into his words, but he tastes it on his tongue anyway.

“Oh, Taako,” Lup says softly. “So many fucking people. Everyone here? They all love you, and they wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

“Except for erase my memories, you mean.”

This elicits a deep breath from his sister, and he can tell she’s trying to summon some of the patience that she learned in the umbrestaff.

“I understand where you’re coming from, sweetheart,” she says, taking his hand and looking seriously into his eyes. “I really, honestly do. But at a point… you’ve got to stop fighting, you know? You’re acting like we’re still having to steal to eat. You’re acting like the Hunger’s going to come any minute. And, babe, you’ve gotta stop thinking like that.”

Taako doesn’t respond, but for the first time he feels the tension crackling through his muscles, as if he hasn’t relaxed in centuries. He probably hasn’t.

“Being alone and constantly moving is fine, but aren’t you tired?” Lup asks gently.

Squeezing his eyes together to fend off the tears he feels prickling at his eyes, he nods. God, he’s so tired.

“I know you are, I know how lonely everything is when it’s just you, Taako. But having someone who knows you, and loves you, no matter the circumstance – it’s amazing. And it takes a lot of the weight off of… well, life.”

He looks at Kravitz again. The sensation he experiences when he thinks about how the man fought his way out of the astral plane – thought of Taako the entire time he was there – didn’t care when Taako wasn’t as beautiful as he was before –

“Shit,” he mutters, his head tilting slightly.

Lup grins widely and claps her hands together. “My bro’s in love, isn’t he?”

He turns on her and jabs a finger in her face, but there’s no heat behind it. “I swear to _God_ if you tell anyone – ”

“Don’t have to, my man!” she shrugs. “Everyone already knows.” Pausing, she pats her brother on the knee. “But I bet… it would be nice if Kravitz heard it from you. In your own time, of course.”

He knows she’s right, and this time he can’t summon the energy to pretend to be mad about it. “Thanks, Lup.”

She smiles, and Taako’s mouth pulls itself into a goofy grin in spite of himself. “No problem, duderino. We’ve just been running for so long. You deserve to stop.”

Later that night, Taako is brushing out his hair before bed in the room Merle is letting them stay in. Kravitz is polishing his scythe because he’s, as Taako would say, the absolute worst kind of cliché. It all feels horrifyingly domestic, and the wizard’s first inclination is to say something off-color to ruin it, but he tamps that down for the moment. He’s got to learn to live in the silences sometime, he supposes.

“Did you have a good time today, dear?” Kravitz asks, and, well, so much for silence. “I’m glad I got to speak with Lucretia. She had a lot of questions about my job; I hope I answered them well enough.”

“Don’t tell her too much,” Taako says before he can help himself. “Otherwise you’ll find an entire century’s worth of your memories just poofed away.”

Kravitz sighs and crosses to the side of the bed where Taako is sitting. Joining his boyfriend, he begins lightly rubbing his back.

“I know it’ll probably take… a while for you to trust her again,” he says cautiously. “But she was doing what she thought was best. And the others seem to have, for the most part, forgiven her.”

“The others didn’t piss decades away not looking for their sister because _they forgot she existed_ ,” Taako says, starting to get worked up. His heart rate subsides, though, as Kravitz continues rubbing circles into his back.

They’re silent for a beat before Kravitz says, “Taako, if you don’t want to forgive her right away, I won’t make you. I’m sorry if I invalidated how what she did made you feel. You take as long as you need to.”

The feeling from earlier resurfaces in Taako’s heart as he turns to look at this man who understands him so completely, who will let him just feel his feelings, the person who somehow decided Taako was worth staying around for. And yeah, usually Taako’s good out here, but this time he thinks it might be worth seeing this through till the end. So, he guesses, now is The Moment.

“I, uhm… I love you,” he tells Kravitz. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Except for Lup. But I don’t want to bone her. Because, gross.”

 _Great_ , he thinks, he’s already fucked it up. But Kravitz is laughing, and pulling Taako into a hug, and planting kisses all over his face.

“I love you, too,” he says, grinning. “Thanks for choosing me.”

“Like it was a choice,” Taako says as he rolls his eyes and lets his head fall onto his boyfriend’s shoulders.

Here, he relaxes, and for once he doesn’t want to run.


End file.
